April Fooled: No, Chinese Communist Icon Lei Feng Is Not Loved by the U.S. Military

Visitors pose in front of a large photos of Lei Feng taken by Zhang Jun at an exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of “Learn from Lei Feng Day” (March 5) on at the Beijing World Art Museum on March 6, 2013.

European Pressphoto Agency

During the 80s and 90s, many Chinese regaled themselves with tall tales of how Lei Feng – China’s revolutionary soldier extraordinaire – had won over hearts and minds in America’s oldest and perhaps most famous military academy.

In the hallowed halls of the United States Military Academy at West Point, as the stories went, Lei Feng was honored alongside American war heroes – his likeness displayed in artworks, his selfless deeds exalted in lessons and songs, his patriotism hailed as exemplary.

Unfortunately for Lei Feng, the reports of his American exploits were greatly exaggerated – even for a model Communist hero whose mythology is widely considered a product of China’s propaganda machine.

This week, more than 30 years later, the man who says he was the first to bring this tall tale to China has come clean.

“On April Fool’s Day 1981, a certain foreign news agency published ‘news’ that West Point cadets were learning from Lei Feng, singing ‘learn from Lei Feng’s good example,’” Li Zhurun, a retired journalist formerly with the official Xinhua News Agency, wrote Sunday on his personal Weibo social-media account. “I didn’t give it further thought and wrote about it in an article.”

The story stuck, and spread. It apparently went unchallenged for 16 years, Mr. Li said on his account, until a local Chinese magazine exposed it as false in a 1997 article. “I take full responsibility for all my remarks, admit my mistake and apologize,” he said, describing his popularizing of the “Lei Feng at West Point” myth as “one of the biggest mistakes in my life.”

Mr. Li didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. It isn’t clear what publication ran Mr. Li’s original article on Lei Feng.

Best known for helping little old ladies cross the street and offering to darn his fellow soldiers’ socks, Lei Feng first became a propaganda sensation after his death in 1962 at age of 21, when the People’s Liberation Army soldier was hit by a falling telephone pole.

In a diary that surfaced after his death, Lei Feng apparently documented his love of helping others and his dedication to the then Chinese leader, Chairman Mao Zedong. The diary, which some say is forged, was later disseminated by Lin Biao, a People’s Liberation Army general who was a close ally of Mao’s, and “study Comrade Lei Feng” became a common refrain throughout the country.

Mr. Li, who became a university lecturer since retiring from journalism, said he has repeatedly recounted his mistake as a warning to students and prospective reporters. “But somehow I kept feeling that it wasn’t enough, and hoped to get a chance to cleanse [this mistake] on a broader scale,” he said.

“By posting on Weibo my confession about bringing the lie of ‘Lei Feng at West Point’ into China and my apology, I have put away a sore point in my heart,” he wrote on Weibo. “I was young then, and didn’t know that Western media often fabricate ‘news’ on April Fool’s Day.”